Fairly successful strategy I’ve been using lately is to out-crazy the red team and feed em their own medicine. No one here needs to be told the libertarian party is just Far Right Lite™, but do you know their selling points? Cuz there is no chance in HELL I’ll be able to convince a Trumpanzee to vote for Biden, but I have been able to steer a handful of votes away from Trump and toward Chase Oliver - usually goes down like this: MAGAt will open the conversation by bitching about someone on the blue team - such as Hillary and her emails. I’ll AGREE with them, but lump her and Trump into the same category… “Idk how they get away with sending classified data on a private email server or printing it out and hauling boxes of it to their private residence. If I did hundredth of the crime Trump or Hillary committed, I’d spend the rest of my life in jail!”. Bitch about how both parties are doing the bare minimum just to stay in power etc; then start pitching 3rd as an alternative option.
‘Both sides’ em, and change their vote to “not trump” by pitching whichever 3rd most closely aligns with their impressionability (which is pretty much always the LP). Put the spoiler effect to good use.
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit or encouraging apathy because of the shit debate.
What else do you call someone complicit in the genocide of a sovereign nation for the sole purpose of furthering a blatantly-supremacist regime? Other than Amerikan, I mean?
And be weary of folks doing the same to you, especially here on Lemmy with all the ‘genocide Joe’ shit
You’ve seen the broken, burnt, limbless and decapitated bodies of twenty-thousand plus dead children, live-tweeted into your living room for nine months and it isn’t enough for you to stop supporting the man principally responsible for it.
You’re not “defeating fascism”, you are a fascist.
They say your time is much better spent guaranteeing people who already will vote blue show up to polls than trying to change the opinion of people who will vote red.
So that looks like asking people “do you have a plan to vote?” And perhaps in a less nosy phrasing: “When will you vote?” “How will you get there?”
People verbalizing a plan makes them more likely to follow through.
There are many places you can sign up to go canvassing, which is great. I would suggest in addition to and maybe before that, make a list of everyone you know and would feel comfortable talking to, and talk to them about voting. You will get much more mileage from existing relationships. (It’s like how sales differentiates a warm lead and a cold lead)
Once you’ve exhausted that list then every little bit still helps. I do think high density events like farmers markets, community gatherings, concerts, games, etc have better rate of contact than door to door.
I realize I just essentially said to tell people to vote while you were asking for something more. I wanted to share that because some people think that posting “vote” is the same as having a conversation about voting. Posting is not nearly as effective.
Another thing that might help is directly asking elected officials to intervene. Staffers for politicians keep a tally of calls and letters they receive for/against a given issue. So while your words may not move an elected, you and some friends can get them to act on an issue. If you have a group you can also request a meeting to discuss your issue which is even more effective. Politicians take notice of organized groups of constituents since that’s a block of votes for/against them and possible a group knocking doors for/against them.
The trouble is I don’t know what the ask is. There should be a specific action you’re demanding: “introduce this bill” “cosponsor this bill” “vote for/against this bill”. And it has to be something they’re able to do. I don’t know what that thing would be.
Pack the supreme court (but there’s not time for that or majority in the house).
Long term I think building true power means growing communities, joining unions and cooperatives. Most of us aren’t rich or powerful enough to be heard, which is why organizing is so important. None of this is fair or easy to do.
Long shot here: Donate to charities which help people in need in predominantly Trump held districts.
Less of a long shot: Volunteer for organizations like Vote Forward to try to reach folks. We’re all human beings at the end of the day, and appealing to people can’t hurt.
I’m very curious how giving money to Trump supporters would hurt Trump? Some people are giving their last dollar to Trump and depend in charity at this point. Wouldn’t throwing money at local charities just further enable them?
Volunteer to help get good local politicians elected.
Help a local charity.
The impact will be indirect, but inpactful.
The vast majority of Americans both already know how they feel about Trump and Biden and live in a solidly red or blue state. If you do want to focus on Biden, volunteer with phone banking or canvassing so that your efforts are directed to where they’ll actually matter and be organized in line with their messaging. Personally, I’d say you’re better off focusing on local races where you have more of an opportunity to come at it from a different angle and cut through people’s fortified positions. And as another user said, focus on mobilization, it’s easier to get someone who already agrees with you to register and make a plan than to convince someone to change their whole worldview.
There are also strategies outside of electoralism, such as protests and counter-protests. You can join an organization and form tactics and strategies to subvert the right’s actions, and engage with direct action to build trust and community that could be important in the future. Form strategies while being realistic about your goals and capabilities and coordinate with others.
Who’s really going to be swayed by a phone bank? My democratic rep keeps robocalling me and sending text messages and I honestly find it more annoying than anything. This does not work in 2024.
If someone canvassing (or a potential solicitor) knocks on my door I’m either not going to answer it or ask them to leave because I’m busy and don’t want my time taken up.
These are totally ineffective strategies IMO.
There are a few types of people that get targeted based on a voter profile, if my tiny amount of phone banking experience matches. There are the people who are probably going to vote for your party, but need a reminder because they are disengaged. Then there are swing voters that actually are on the fence and use a little information about your candidate. Like, most people don’t know much about Biden’s infrastructure package, so list off some projects nearby.
Fair, and people in swing states get inundated with ads as it is. Mostly I’d say it’s more useful for mobilization than persuasion, like if you get a text reminding you when voting day is maybe someone makes it when they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Ideally, volunteers could mean quality over quantity, less automated spam asking for money and instead actual humans responding to concerns and answering questions. Even more ideally, that could be paired with voters’ concerns being elevated and the party actually responding to them. The goal is to improve the quality of the campaign’s voter outreach, in whatever form that outreach takes.
I’m not a fan of Biden myself but I still think it’s worth discussing general electoral strategies.
turning off voters is the biggest reason why we don’t vote imo in this environment and there’s nothing you can do about shitty choices that the democrats will give us; but there’s things you can do to overcome the other institutional part of it; aka gerrymandering:
setup free voting ride shares with free filling snacks in gerrymandered states that will pick each person up from home; drop them off at their polling station; pick them up from there; and then drop them off at home w/o having to wait for everyone to finish voting. the lines are VERY long and take hours in heavily gerrymandered places like houston texas and people hate voting already; so making them wait or skip dinner to vote is a non-starter.
setup free voting phone number and/or website that will help register you to vote (not just tell you what you need to do) on your behalf and include the option to mail you a pre-filled envelope and stamp if paper registration is required. advertise it HEAVILY on all forms of media everywhere and make it clear it’s not from the government.
then, assign a case worker to every client to ensure that the registration was completed and followup on the problems that gerrymandered places usually create to suppress votes. also get lawyers or people familiar with election laws to file inquiries on each voter’s behalf each time a gerrymandered place manages to find a reason to disqualify a voter or an employer refuses to let them off to vote and use that case worker to manage it.
expect it to fail the first few times because people hate talking about politics so they won’t listen for the first few cycles.
An armed rebellion. Duh.
In fact this is the only thing that can be done. If Trump loses, he wins anyway in the form of Biden.
Biden did continue just about all of Trump’s most infamous policies. The border camps are still open, he continued to build the wall, Cop Cities are still built, the 61 political prisoners in Atlanta are still locked up under RICO charges that the Segregationist-In-Chief could’ve pardoned away… “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”; no matter who wins.
Those 61 prisoners were prosecuted under state law, which the president cannot pardon or commute. It is part of the reason that the business record investigation against Trump has outsized consequences. It was done at the state level, so even if he is reelected there is no question of him pardoning himself.
Likewise with Cop City, it is funded by the Atlanta City Council and private entities. The federal government is not involved from what I can tell.
I could make a few effective suggestions, but I don’t want to end up on a list. My life sucks enough without getting in trouble for a joke.
Telling Biden to stop the genocide.
single-handedly. Send out that 81 year old man with a pistol to take on the Israeli defence force.
🙄
This, but unironically.
Why don’t presidents fight the wars?
Or just stop giving them billions. That’s the threat Bush and Reagan used.
But I like your idea more.
pop quiz: what happens when Israel is defenseless?
answer: the Arab neighbours who have been Borat-like in their anti-Semitism move in and do exactly what they say they will do for decades.
pop quiz: is there another way without wiping out another people?
answer: yes. change Israel’s government.
Please educate yourself.
I do all my best learnin’ from da yutoobs.
That’s great, keep learning.
FROM DA YOOTOOBS
Volunteer to help get good local politicians elected.
Help a local charity.
The impact will be indirect, but inpactful.
All practical options are extralegal.
I know I’ve been asking myself if I want to stick around to see what happens, but I dunno if I have the courage to turn the gun on myself. I’d drink myself to death, if I had any booze around.
Things will get better after they get worse. Stick around man.
Not sure if you’re referring to alcoholism or assassinations, but I guess you’re right either way.
If your state allows it, set up a table and register people to vote
Volunteer to phone bank
Money. Donate. There isn’t a near term world where money won’t matter in giving you a voice, so you should use it.
Pretty sure the us parties have far too much money.
Don’t have a genocidal sundowning segregationist nominated without a rank-and-file voting process with multiple candidates. Or accept that you are not really in charge of any of this when it comes to The Democratic Party and therefore you should place your political focus on ways to build and wield power that do not depend on it.
This is the only correct answer. The settler empire cannot and will never do right, neither by the subjects-of-empire they still subject to fascism, to tenement housing because anglo realty companies bought up everything else to stranglehold rent prices, to carceral slavery in moldering prisons with food that’d give you COVID before it nourished you, to murder in our beds at the hands of SWAT teams; nor by the rest of the world that they routinely violate, pillage, and commit genocide upon. Death to the empire, worse to those who bear its water.
“I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” – John Brown, December 2, 1859
You can volunteer to text/call people. Donating will also help make a difference.
